MUNIBE (Antropologia-Arkeologia) 57 Homenaje a Jesús Altuna 217-223 SAN SEBASTIAN 2005 ISSN 1132-2217 A Lot of Bull? Pablo Picasso and Ice Age cave art Pablo Picasso y el arte rupestre paleolítico KEY WORDS: Picasso, cave art, palaeolithic art, Lascaux, Altamira, Lespugue. PALABRAS CLAVE: Picasso, arte rupestre, Arte Paleolítico, Lascaux, Altamira, Lespugue. Paul BAHN* ABSTRACT Many claims have been made, and continue to be made, concerning PICASSO’s reaction to Ice Age cave art — in particular, it is said that he visited either Altamira or Lascaux, and declared that “we have invented nothing” or that ”none of us can paint like this”. The paper investigates these claims, and finds that they have absolutely no basis in fact. PICASSO was minimally influenced by Ice Age art and expressed little interest in it. RESUMEN Se ha hablado mucho, y se sigue hablando, sobre la reacción de PICASSO ante el arte del período glaciar; en particular se dice que visitó Altamira o Lascaux y declaró: “no hemos inventado nada” o, “ninguno de nosotros puede pintar así.” Este artículo investiga esas supuestas reacciones y concluye que no se basan en absoluto en hechos. A PICASSO le influyó muy poco el arte glaciar y expresó muy poco interés por él. LABURPENA Asko hitz egin da, eta oraindik ere hitz egiten da, glaziare aldiko artea ikustean PICASSOk egin zituen adierazpenei buruz. Esaten da Altamira eta Lascaux koba-zuloak ikusi zituenean zera adierazi zuela: “ez dugu ezer asmatu” eta baita “gutariko inork ezin du horrela pintatu”. Artikulu honetan PICASSOk egin omen zituen adierazpen horiek ikertu dira eta ondorioztatu, adierazpen horiek ez direla gertaera jakin batzuetan oinarri- turik egin. Glaziare aldiko arteak ez zuen eraginik izan Picassorengan eta horrek interes gutxi erakutsi zuen labar-arteari buruz. INTRODUCTION When I was asked to contribute an article in made one or the other declaration on emerging tribute to my friend JESUS ALTUNA, I wondered from a decorated cave). The first statement was what might be a suitable topic, and eventually something like ”We have invented nothing”: e.g. decided to produce something which touched on RUDGLEY (1998: 182) says “Picasso....is reported to several themes that have been central to have said on leaving Lascaux, “We have invented his most distinguished career — Ice Age cave art, nothing”, while SPIVEY (2005: 24) says “PICASSO visited Lascaux in 1941 [sic!] and said «we have the depiction of animals, and Spanish art. Hence learnt nothing”. The other - most recently this brief examination of the possible relationship repeated by BELTRAN (1998: 9) - is “Ninguno de between PABLO PICASSO and Ice Age cave art. nosotros es capaz de pintar así” (“none of us can What prompted this investigation was a paint like this”). In another variation, ALLEN (2003) recurring story — which I have heard and read claims that “PABLO PICASSO...dijo sobre las pinturas many times over the years — that PICASSO is de la cueva cántabra que “después de Altamira, supposed to have expressed two opinions about todo es decadencia». But curiously, no source or cave art (in some versions, he is supposed to have reference is ever given for any of these claims. * PAUL G. BAHN, 428 Anlaby Road, Hull HU3 6QP, England. E-mail: [email protected] 218 PAUL G. BAHN Numerous people - scholars, lecturers, cave art. Similarly he also reveals some caveguides - have been repeating this story for awareness of how much prehistoric art is lost to many years, so it struck me as an interesting us (BRASSAI ibid.: 102): “Qu’est-ce qui se conserve exercise to investigate, and find out if indeed dans la terre? C’est la pierre, le bronze, l’ivoire, PICASSO ever said such things, and in connection l’os, parfois la poterie.... Jamais les objets en bois, with which caves, and had he in fact ever visited rien des tissus, des peaux.... Ce qui fausse any decorated caves? The results of my research so complètement nos idées sur les premiers hom- far have been most enlightening, albeit unexpected. mes... Je ne crois pas me tromper en affirmant The problem with the few published que les plus beaux objets de l’âge de, “pierre” presentations of this story — such as that by étaient en peau, en tissu et surtout en bois. L’âge de “pierre” devrait s’appeler l’Age de bois.... BELTRAN (ibid.) - is that no source is ever given for the information. This in itself is already somewhat Parmi les statues nègres, combien y en a-t-il en suspicious. The obvious place to concentrate the pierre, en os, en ivoire? Peut-être une sur mille! Or, l’homme préhistorique n’avait pas plus d’ivoire search was in some of the innumerable books and à sa disposition que les tribus nègres... Peut-être articles devoted to PICASSO. I have not, of course, même moins... Il devrait y avoir des milliers de been able to consult more than a fraction of them, fétiches en bois, tous disparus...” and it is quite possible that more information PICASSO’s interest in Ice Age sculpture is most is to be found elsewhere, or will appear in the evident in the fact that he owned not one but two detailed biography which is slowly being compiled casts of the extraordinary ivory “Venus of and published by RICHARDSON (e.g. 1992). Lespugue”. BRASSAI (1964: 105) tells us that the The first thing which required investigation artist had a glass and metal display case in which was whether there is any evidence for PICASSO he kept a number of objects,. including “un ever having visited an Ice Age decorated cave, moulage de la Vénus de Lespugne.... Elle se trou- and I have not been able to find any - there is no ve même en deux exemplaires: l’un conforme à knowledge of any visit to Lascaux (DELLUC, pers. l’original ébréché, l’autre complété, restauré... comm.), nor any trace in the “Golden Book” of PICASSO adore cette toute première déesse de la any visit to Altamira (Estrada Cuevas, pers. fécondité, quintesscence des formes féminines comm.). Nor have I ever found any reference to dont la chair, comme suscitée par le désir de his owning or even being familiar with any of the l’homme, semble enfler et proliférer autour d’un important early monographs on cave art published noyau.” MALRAUX, too, on a visit to PICASSO’s by BREUIL and others in the early 20th century. studio, mentions these two casts (1974: 115): Indeed, in my research so far, there seems to il m’entraîne dans une petite pièce voisine, tire have been a distinct lack of interest on Picasso’s de sa ceinture un trousseau de clefs, ouvre une part in cave art. The only reference to it which I armoire métallique. Sur les rayons, ses statuettes have been able to locate is in his conversations très allongées que l’on appelait alors les with the photographer BRASSAI in October 1943. Crétoises, une idole-violon des Cyclades, deux BRASSAI (1964: 100) mentions that “il y a moulages de statuettes prehistoriques: quelques années, j’ai été dans la vallée des “La Vénus de Lespugue? Eyzies, en Dordogne...Je voulais voir sur place - Oui.” l’art des cavernes”; but PICASSO shows little L’un des moulages est celui de la statuette interest in this topic, and certainly makes no mutilée; il en a trouvé un de la statuette admiring pronouncement about cave art. reconstituée: le buste et les jambes jointes What he does comment on (ibid.) is the surgissent symétriquement du puissant volume origins of sculpture: “Si l’homme est venu à fixer de la croupe et du ventre. des images, c’est qu’il les découvrait autour de lui “Je pourrais la faire avec un tomate traversée presque formées, déjà à la portée de sa main. Il par un fuseau, non?” les voyait dans un os, dans la bosselure d’une ca- So, apart from the Venus of Lespugue, what verne, dans un morceau de bois...Une forme lui ancient or “primitive” arts did influence PICASSO? suggérait la femme, l’autre un bison, une autre Many people thought, on seeing Les Demoiselles encore la tête d’un monstre.” d’Avignon, that the picture owed a great deal to This reference to seeing shapes in caves, and African art (e.g. MAX JACOB declared that “Cubism to bison images, certainly reveals that he was was born from Negro sculpture” [MCCULLY 1982: aware to some extent of the form and content of 55]), but PICASSO denied this vigorously: “PICASSO a Munibe (Antropologia-Arkeologia) 57, 2005 · Homenaje a Jesús Altuna S. C. Aranzadi. Z. E. Donostia/San Sebastián A LOT OF BULL? PABLO PICASSO AND ICE AGE CAVE ART 219 toujours affirmé que la naissance du cubisme ne in varying degrees of articulation, from modeled devait rien aux fétiches noirs, lui-même n’ayant vu form to outlined shape.” de sculptures nègres qu’après l’achèvement de sa Similarly, PALAU I FABRE (1978) claims that toile” (BRASSAI 1964: 39). And similarly “Dans Les PICASSO “having plumbed the depths of the Demoiselles d’Avignon, j’ai peint un nez de profil human soul...reached both the child and the dans un visage de face....Alors on a parlé des caveman in himself”, and that in the last of the Nègres. Avez-vous jamais vu une seule sculpture bull lithographs he “finally reached the very soul nègre, une seule, avec un nez de profil dans un of the animal. he captured its spiritual skeleton - masque de face?” (MALRAUX 1974: 116-17). exactly as had been the Altamira or the Lascaux So what had influenced this painting? man’s aim in adorning the walls of his cave.” It is According to RICHARDSON (1992: 519), in 1939 also worth noting that the abbé ANDRÉ GLORY ALFRED BARR claimed that the primitivism of the made a slide of a drawing in which he showed Demoiselles derived from the art of the Ivory supposed resemblances between Lascaux Coast and the French Congo; but PICASSO then animals and PICASSO drawings (DELLUC, pers.